That’s my dog Moo Moo. And that’s flour on her face. She is always in the kitchen “helping” whenever I cook or bake. She faithfully hovers around my feet looking for some morsel to drop, which inevitably does, because I’m a klutz. Today it was flour. I had the mixer going and was adding flour, when “poof,” it flew all over and landed on anything within a six inch radius, including Moo Moo. I have a splash guard for my mixer, but I’m always too lazy to get it out and put it on. So she gets the brunt of my indolence. Poor little girl. She looked so silly I had to take a picture.
A little history on how Moo Moo got her name. When we adopted her, she was about 1 1/2 years old and had the moniker “Wiggles Margaret Dogface.” We didn’t care for it that much, although it is fitting since she is a wiggler. We decided on Maggie, the nickname for Margaret. After a while I started calling her Maggie Moo. Eventually it was just Moo Moo. She responds to either Maggie or Moo Moo. For some reason, Moo Moo just suits her.
Our baking project for the day was Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bread from bettycrocker.com. With Moo Moo at my feet and our other dog Stanley snoozing in the sun, I got to work. Quick breads are one of my favorite things to bake. My husband loves them too and almost feels lost if he doesn’t have a piece to take with him to work to nibble on. I think there’s nothing better than a slice of banana bread or pumpkin bread with my cup of coffee in the morning. It turned out to be a very nice recipe. I only had one problem with it – the chocolate chips on top started to burn a little. I’ve found the trick with quick breads when they start to get too brown on top, but aren’t done inside, is to take them out of the oven and cover them with foil. This traps the heat in and steams it to finish baking the inside. I will remember that for the next time I make this recipe. Other than a few burned chocolate chips, the results were a dog with flour on her face and two picturesque loaves of bread.
I give this recipe 3 stars (on a scale where 1 star = “Blech!” and 5 stars = “Heavenly!”). It wasn’t as moist as I was hoping and it could have used more chocolate chips.
Ohhhhh…..pumpkin chocolate chip, one of my most favorite combinations! Your dog is so precious with the flour on her head, I love pets! I am always too lazy to use my splash guard too, just one more thing to clean so I put mine away.